Development · Highway 316 · The long view
Rowen: The Knowledge Community
Rowen is a planned research and innovation campus, a roughly 2,000-acre knowledge community in eastern Gwinnett County along State Route 316 between Dacula and Auburn, about 35 miles from downtown Atlanta. It is led by the Rowen Foundation, an independent, not-for-profit group, and it is the biggest land-use story on the corridor.
This page explains what Rowen is, what has actually happened so far, and what it may mean for the Mulberry area, in verified, general terms. It is a decades-long project, so the honest framing is long-term potential, not a near-term forecast.
What it is
A knowledge community, not a normal subdivision
Rowen is conceived as a campus where research institutions, companies, and public spaces share one master-planned site, rather than a typical housing development. Its stated focus areas are the agricultural, medical, and environmental sciences, and the master plan includes a walkable mixed-use core, research and office buildings, and limited residential uses, all set on open land along the Highway 316 corridor.
The project was announced in August 2020 with the Development Authority of Gwinnett County and the county board of commissioners behind it, and the site has been assembled over several years. At full build-out over many years, it has been projected to support a very large employment base, on the order of tens of thousands of jobs, though that is a long-horizon figure, not a near-term promise.
The milestones
What has actually happened so far
- 2020: the project was announced, with county backing and infrastructure financing authorized for the majority of the site.
- December 2022: a formal groundbreaking on the first infrastructure work.
- The roads first: the initial phase of the campus has been the road and utility work, including a "complete streets" infrastructure project that the developers describe as Georgia's first Greenroads Pilot Certified project.
- 2026: Brussels-based biopharmaceutical company UCB selected Rowen as the site of its first U.S. biologics manufacturing facility, a large investment on roughly 79 acres with several hundred permanent jobs, announced as the largest single capital investment in Gwinnett County history.
Project details, tenants, and timelines change as deals are announced, and the Rowen Foundation's site, rowenlife.com, is the current source for what is official at any given moment.
What it means for Mulberry
The corridor connection
Rowen sits on the Highway 316 corridor south of the Mulberry area, a short drive from the Hamilton Mill side along the road network that connects eastern Gwinnett. For Mulberry-area residents, the significance is the employment picture: a research and manufacturing campus of this scale, built out over the coming decades, would put a major set of knowledge-economy jobs on the same highway network the city already uses, which is why the project shows up so often in local conversations about schools, traffic, and housing.
It is worth keeping the honest timeline: as of this update the campus has broken ground on infrastructure and landed its first major manufacturing tenant, but the full vision is measured in decades. For now it is the most important long-term story on the eastern Gwinnett economy, and the Auburn jobs page covers the corridor employment picture as it stands today.
An editorial guide, not a listings site. Updated September 22, 2026. Real-estate guidance on this page is provided by Rob Dietrich, REALTOR® with eXp Realty, LLC.